Wednesday’s scheduled baseball game between Eastern and Benedictine University has been moved to this afternoon, with the game set to start at 3 p.m. in Coaches’ Stadium.

Panther head coach Jim Schmitz said the game was moved because of weather conditions Wednesday and the fact that the team did not get a chance to put a tarp over the field this week before the rains.

“It was kind of a hard decision (to move the game),” Schmitz said. “You saw rain coming in, we played Saturday, it was nice Saturday night and Sunday, you don’t want to tarp your field with the sun.”

Schmitz added that the Panthers have been lucky all year to have a good drainage system under their field, but even the best drains can only handle so much water.

“We’ve been lucky all year,” Schmitz said. “Our field drains really well, but golly, I mean we’re talking six or seven days with rain.”

The Panthers are coming off a game Tuesday night against Missouri in which they lost 7-5 to the Tigers in T.R. Hughes Ballpark in O’Fallon, Mo. In the game, the Panthers were able to get the tying runner into scoring position in the final inning but were unable to drive him in.

Schmitz said he was impressed and pleased with how his team performed against the Big 12 school, despite coming up short.

“That was our third or fourth time over there and we’ve really been intimidated by them,” said Schmitz. “We’ve not played well early on and then come back and made it close. I was really impressed with just how we went out and played.”

Joe Greenfield got the start Tuesday night. Schmitz said he thought Greenfield did a good job of avoiding the big inning, but he hit the first batter of the game and walked the leadoff man in the second inning, and that was what proved to be his biggest problem.

Schmitz added that he was most impressed with sophomore Troy Barton, even though the right-hander ended up taking the loss for the Panthers as he allowed one run, earned, on two hits with no walks and six strikeouts in 3.1 innings.

“I thought Troy was the most impressive out of anybody,” said Schmitz. “(But) he comes home with the loss, but he knows he made one bad pitch up and they popped it over the wall.”

The Panthers will now look to their game with Benedictine, and Schmitz said he hadn’t seen the scouting report, but the Panthers were starting senior right-hander Josh Wilson, who has seen limited action this season.

“You want to play people,” said Schmitz. “Obviously the next two weekend we’ve got to make some hay, whether that’s (winning) five out of six or whatever. If you make a great run in the tournament, and all of a sudden you give a ball to a Josh Wilson or Christian Slazinik, and they haven’t pitched for a month and a half, it’s really a hard call. You want to keep guys fresh.”

After Benedictine the Panthers will travel this weekend to Tennessee-Martin for a three-game Ohio Valley Conference series, and they will play no mid-week gems next week.

Brad Kupiec can be reached at 581-7944 or bmkupiec@eiu.edu.

Mike Hoekstra, a red-shirt junior pitcher, prepares to release the ball during the first game of a double header against Murray State at Coaches Stadium Saturday. Eastern lost the first game 1-4 and won the second game 5-3. (Danny Damiani

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